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I have always found
it ironic that we easily forget the big things, the events that seem of great
importance: Who won the Academy Awards five years ago? Who won the Cup final?
We quickly tend to forget these things. What we do not forget, with all the
healing and grace it brought, is who was nice to us all those years ago on the
playground at school. Conversely, we remember, and remember vividly, with all
the scars it brought, who laughed at us on the playground and who made fun of
our clothes or called us stupid.
Small acts, of cruelty or kindness, leave their effect
long after the events have passed. There is, I believe, a profound lesson in
this. The kingdom
of God, as Jesus tells
us, is about mustard seeds, about small seemingly unimportant things, but which,
in the long run, are the big things
Not much in our world today helps us to believe that.
Most everything urges us to think big and to be careless about small things
played out on the smaller stage of our personal lives – in our families,
marriages, and in our exchanges with our neighbours and colleagues. The little
insults that we hand out, the small infidelities within our own sexual lives,
the many little acts of selfishness – these are deemed to be of little
consequence. And, conversely, our small acts of sacrifice and selflessness, the
little compliments that we hand out, these are not valued much in our culture.
But in the end, the only thing we may remember from a given year is some small
mustard seed of cruelty or kindness.
Small acts, of cruelty or kindness, leave their
effect long after the events have passed.
Ron Rolheiser OMI
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